


half asleep (wishing i still had you)

by cityofatlas



Category: She-Ra - All Media Types, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Genre: Adora is Bubblegum, Adventure Time AU, Angsty in the beginning, Bow and Glimmer are Finn and Jake, Bubbline AU, Catra is Marceline, F/F, but maybe happy ending?, everyone is gay and somewhat happy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-24
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-08-28 09:20:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16720629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cityofatlas/pseuds/cityofatlas
Summary: Catra the Vampire Queen travels the land of Ooo, trying to forget a certain ex-best-friend-turned-princess who left her behind. Adora, Princess of the Candy Kingdom, throws herself into protecting her kingdom from outside threats. Somehow, they manage without each other, but somehow, Glob just keeps bringing them together.oran Adventure Time AU





	1. don't want you in my blood(line)

“When’s the last time you went home?” the girl on the other side of the bed asks. It’s three in the morning, and the mattress is lumpy and Catra is still uncomfortably dull with the effects of alcohol. She winces once when the temple of her head throbs. Lights flicker from outside street lamps, filtering in through the shutters and casting half of the girl’s body in shadows and sheets. Catra can’t even remember her name, much less what she looks like without reference, and rests her forearms over her eyes with a sigh.

  
“I’ve been traveling for a couple years,” she says, skirting the question with her half-truth. She doesn’t know if she’d call the place she’d lived in before her “home” any more than she’d call the Nightosphere a “family-fun place.”

  
“I don’t really have a home, I guess,” Catra shrugs, letting the words go like unclenching her fists after so long. The girl makes a noise somewhere in her throat and turns, pressing herself up against Catra’s arm. For a second, she’s tempted to snarl, push her away and pull on the rest of her clothes, but she just huffs in annoyance and lets her. The girl traces Catra’s bicep, sketching her veins and skin so contentedly it lulls her into ease.

  
“Where’d you live before you were here?” the girl questions, and Catra is so close to sleep, drowning in drowsy, that she answers.  
“A treehouse in the Grasslands, right by the Candy Kingdom,” she yawns, and laughs ryely, like it’s a joke. “But I bought it with my asshole ex, Ash. That shit-for-brains, wanna-be wizard is probably living there now.” She lets herself remember him for what he was: an abuser, who whined and begged and threatened whenever she would think for herself.

  
“Oh, Catra,” he would say, a smirk on his mouth thin enough to slice fingers. Just like Shadow Weaver would say it, too. She let him make her small, until she grew tired of it all and set his car on fire.

  
So, no, home wasn’t with Ash. It wasn’t with Shadow Weaver either. It wasn’t with any of the girls she had slept with since she’d left her life behind, it wasn’t in a stranger’s hair when her claws combed through it or in a stranger’s mouth when her tongue went searching. It wasn’t here, nor there, but maybe some of it was left with…

  
“Adora,” she breathes, and touches her lips right after the name leaves. “Adora,” she repeats, but this time brow furrowed and heart hardened.

  
“Who’s Adora?”

  
“No one,” Catra bites, trying to swipe back images of a girl with a dirty blonde ponytail and dumb blue eyes. “She’s no one.” She says firmly, as if it’s true, as if lies can halt memory, rewrite history, stop best friends from leaving. As if.

 

* * *

 

It is a year after the Great Mushroom War when Catra and Adora meet. One long year of surviving off of stale candy bars and alphabet soup. A year of stopping up emotions and leaving behind mothers to journey a post-apocalyptic world alone. So yeah, Catra is kind of a pro at repressing things.

  
With the backdrop of smoke and cracked-up cities as her horizon, Catra takes to wandering the streets at random, picking her way through the ruins of her hometown, and eventually the neighboring one. She never realizes that she might not be alone, until one day she isn’t.

  
Her feet and her feline companion, Clawdeen, take her to a dead grocery store in another burned-out city. It’s similar to all of the ones she’s found before, with the letters of its neon sign hooked at crooked angles and cars and carts idle in the parking lot.

  
“What do you think, Clawdeen?” Catra bends down to whisper to the cat. “More soup?” Clawdeen rolls over and scratches herself against the black carpet of the entryway. “Chicken noodle it is.” She sprints down the dusty aisles, swooping up dried leaves and lint bunnies in her wake.

  
The store is full of creaky corners and sweet-sour smells. Catra can’t stand being in abandoned buildings for long, and only manages because of parks and nice cats. She grabs all the cans she can and stuffs it into a sparkly cat backpack she wore to her first day of fourth grade. Kitty-Catra, her mom used to call her. Quick as a cat, with all nine lives to go with it. Something in her chest stings, and Catra fumbles with her thoughts, pushes them aside. Not now. Maybe not ever.

  
“Clawdeen, where are you?” Catra hisses. She hates speaking loudly, mostly because the world is so quiet now. Stirring that silence feels too much like digging up the world’s collective grave. Peeking around the shelves, Catra resigns to leaving a trail of food for Clawdeen when she hears a giggle. It’s high-pitched and easy, slightly hysteric in the absence of other noise. Catra freezes, a bag of marshmallows clutched in her hand, and slowly turns. She doesn’t know what she expected, but she definitely didn’t expect a small blonde girl with a ripped red and white shirt to be petting her cat, smiling a fluorescent, missing-toothed grin.

  
“Are you an angel?” Catra blurts out. The girl tips off her haunches, falls backwards and scrambles in the dust. “Hey, it’s okay!” She raises her palms in surrender, wondering how this girl is so hostile and feral in a world like this. The girl squares her fists defensively, and if Jonah could part the sea, this girl’s blue eyes could tear apart Catra just as easily.

  
She slowly pops open the bag of marshmallows and offers them to the girl.

  
“I won’t hurt you,” Catra promises, and the girl looks unsteady. “Do you want a marshmallow?” She hesitates and Catra can see the muscles of her bare legs tense, ready to run, until Clawdeen purrs and rubs herself against Catra’s legs. 

  
“Mrs. Mustache likes you,” the girl says grudgingly, and after a second grabs a fistful of marshmallows from the bag.

  
“You named my cat Mrs. Mustache?” Catra exclaims, gaping as the girl shoves all the marshmallows into her mouth. They seem to glue her teeth together and she watches in amazement as the girl works her jaw audibly and gulps everything down.

  
“Yeah. She has that patch of white under her nose, so it looks like she has a mustache.”

  
Catra glances down at the black cat, now licking her front paw innocently. She's being unusually elegant today, flicking her tail in imperative questions marks.  _Are you showing off for the stranger?_ she asks the cat silently, and finds her answer when Clawdeen mews pitifully. Catra rolls her eyes. 

  
“Her name can be Clawdeen Mustache,” she nods amicably, and the smile that bursts onto the girl's face is enough of a reward for Catra. She reaches out her hand, feeling very solemn, like this is important, like this is more than two girls agreeing on the name of a cat. Their palms meet and Catra's hand is grimy with sweat and sweets. She hopes she doesn't notice. 

  
“I’m Catra.”

  
“Adora.”

  
And that’s when everything changes.


	2. i miss missing you (now and then)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whatup it's your boi uhhh atlas and sorry this chapter took so long i'm in finals week right now and it's been hell and i kind of want to die but eh. title of the chapter is from fall out boy's miss missing you and the title of the story is from chelsea culter's your shirt. hope you enjoy :)

Catra comes running back to the Candy Kingdom after centuries of being away, though it doesn’t feel like long. A distress call trickles down the social grapevine, twisting word of mouth from Princess Entrapta to Scorpia Strong. All the message says is: “Candy Kingdom is under attack,” and Catra senses the draw, the nocking of the bow that will send her back. She shoots into the sky sporting giant bat wings and heads for Adora, hoping she’s whole enough to face her. 

When she touches down by the palace, she thinks about how much it’s changed over the years, how it went from a small town with a couple of citizens to a larger, more developed community. The pavement is peanut brittle, the hard candy houses sturdy, the cotton candy trees taller than when Catra and Adora used to swing through them. Catra sucks in a breath, inhaling the familiar scent of licorice and spun sugar that stings her nostrils like a betrayal. 

You don’t belong here anymore, the wind blusters, sweeping gum wrappers down the empty candy streets. She didn’t want you; this isn’t your home. And then a stampeding rainbow horse drops out of the clouds, almost bulldozing Catra. 

She leaps out of the way just in time. The horse performs barrel rolls and corkscrews, soars in loops before plummeting back to the ground. It’d be awesome if it was intentional, and Catra is so distracted in watching she almost doesn’t notice a candy kid out on the street. 

“Get back inside!” shouts Catra, waving her arms. “It’s not safe here!” The kid just stares at her, gumdrop head cocked to the side. Out of the corner of her eye, Catra sees the horse swoop down, bucking in a frenzy. 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groans, running all out. At the last second, she dives, pushing the gumdrop child away from galloping hooves.

“Dude, did you hear me?” Catra grabs the kid by the shoulders. He just shakes his head and she sends him back home with a shove. The second the door shuts, her focus shifts. 

“Hey!” she yells at the horse and unsheathes her claws. “Watch where you’re going!” She gets a running start and springs from balcony to house to rooftop to wild horse in a matter of seconds. Catra definitely prefers levitation, or being a bat, to riding a seizing, rabid unicorn. 

His eyes roll violently and show clouded white. Catra digs her heels into the creature’s side, lying low against its back to avoid falling. 

“Chill out,” she hisses into his ear and grips his mane in her fist. “I’m trying to help.” she attempts to urge him upward, away from the kingdom and harm, but he plummets and smashes Catra headlong into a fountain. 

“Ow,” she mutters. Her head is fuzzy from impact. “You jerk.” Just when Catra is about to shift into werewolf mode and swipe the nuisance out of the realm, a booming voice yells, “For the honor of Ooo!” 

“Great,” Catra mumbles. She rests her head in her hands, sinking further into sugar water as she witnesses Adora crack down to earth. 

She’s wearing her ridiculously moded-out princess suit, the one she only uses for “emergencies and not for fun, Catra.” Somehow, the white exoskeleton is still in perfect condition, except for a couple of long scratches Catra knows are hidden down the back. Her hand reaches over her shoulder to grab the hilt of her sword, until the unicorn rises on unsteady legs and Adora’s mouth drops open. 

“Oh my glob,” she breathes, then yells: “GLIMMER!” The horse snorts unhappily when two other people jump down from the rooftops. A girl in a light purple shirt and darker purple shorts dashes over, equally as stunned. 

“Whoa,” she says, her eyes literally sparkling.

“It’s a rainicorn!” shouts a boy, his voice cracking slightly at the last syllable. His whole body is yellow, including his clothes, and Catra is surprised when he stretches his body over to the horse, like taffy. The rainicorn dances skittishly, but the boy extends his palms slowly. 

“It’s okay, horsey,” he soothes, patting the raincorn’s head. The horse opens its mouth and lets out a stream of foreign words. 

“Uhh, what was that?” Adora asks, exchanging glances with Glimmer, who is eyeing the creature suspiciously. 

“Oh! Oh! It’s Korean,” Bow jumps up and listens to the rainicorn. “He says his name is Lord Swift Wind, and that he’s from the Crystal Dimension. He doesn’t know how he got here, but he’s sorry for making such a mess.” 

“It’s okay, Swift Wind. You’re welcome to stay with me at the castle.” Adora bows her head towards Swift Wind and whispers to the others not-so-subtly, “He’s beautiful.” 

Catra watches Adora’s face light up as the rainicorn allows her to pat his muzzle, the tired stretch of her eyes ironing out with a smile. Something inside of her uncurls, aches for the weight on Adora’s shoulders and the crown on her head. She never used to be so battle-strung. Her sword never used to look like a curse. 

Bow raises his hand, which splits into two, for high-fives. 

“Good job, best friend squad,” he booms seriously. “Next on the agenda, video games!” 

“Video games!” Glimmer echoes in a scream, shaking Adora by her shirt. “We have to beat Bow in Violin Hero. I can’t afford to lose again.” 

Adora lets out a weak chuckle, but eventually says, “Maybe tomorrow, guys. I got a lot of stuff I gotta do back at the castle. The Candy Citizens aren’t going to take care of themselves.” Catra can see the shift again, can see the creases on her forehead bunch. All she wants to do is tap her between the eyebrows, tell her to “take a chill pill,” and witness the worry fade away. Just like before. Before it stopped working, and Adora shut her out. 

Catra slowly pulls herself out of the fountain, hissing from the guillotine pain in her head. She shakes herself dry, throwing off water droplets and shame and the dull ache of disappointment. Her jeans are disgustingly soaked, and she doesn’t even have a change of clothes. All of her belongings got dropped into a volcano because someone (Scorpia) was paying attention to the fire flowers and not Catra, causing a massive rockslide and a near-death experience. 

She stamps off toward the tree line, not even trying to be subtle. Not like Adora would ever notice her presence. Risking a glance back, her suspicions are confirmed. Adora mounts the back of the long rainicorn and takes off for the Candy Castle, without knowing how close her best friend had been. After all these years… 

Typical.


	3. maybe i'll find another time for this place

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so freaking long i realized i posted the last chapter during winter quarter finals and now i'm posting during spring break... hehe my bad. i can't believe season 2 is coming out in a month!!!! catch me in my lectures just watching spop :) title is from the song really gone by chvrches. pls enjoy my stress writing uwu.

Catra gets a little lost on the way back to the treehouse. It’s been years since she’s been back, so yeah, maybe she forgot exactly how far away from the apple orchards it was. You can’t blame her, though, because it never really felt right, what with Ash constantly pressuring her to do things, and the parties he threw, and the strangers he brought over that were continuously crashing in their living room. Maybe a part of her repressed the memory of the treehouse, but she’s got nowhere else to go. Most of her friends are either far away, on tour, or not her friends anymore. Can’t exactly call in a royal favor with a princess that doesn’t want to see you again. 

A breeze whispers her way, filtering through the tall branches and scratching against tree bark. It sweeps her up in its arms and carries her into a clearing, right before the large tree she used to call hers. The moon anchors over the strangely empty grasslands and casts its light down on the tree that has noticeably grown bigger in Catra’s absence. The house has expanded to fit the growth, with bridges spanning from room to room, a crow’s nest jammed into the side of the roof, and a little attic/shed/torture room(??) that sits as an entrance to the house. Catra makes a little frown with her mouth, which is actually hard because duh, fangs. The lights are on. Someone’s home. 

She floats over to the murder shed, eviction script in mind as she knocks on the door. She cranes her head back, looking up, up, up to study the tree’s stretching limbs. There’s almost a sense of familiarity.

“Hello?” A purple girl opens the door. It’s the one from before, with Adora and the stretchy boy, and the association makes Catra hesitate for a second too long. The door falls open a little more, revealing a dragon’s hoard of treasure in the entryway. So, not a torture room, Catra thinks, and pushes her way into the house. 

“Hey! You can’t just come in here!” the shiny girl (Glitter? Shimmer?) exclaims and tries to block Catra with her body. Catra casts a glance upward, noting the ladder leading to the second level. 

“Huh. I never needed that when I lived here. How’d you get a ladder through the doorway?” She does a serene flip over Dimmer(?) and picks up a gold coin, which looks strangely like a drachma. The girl looks aghast, her jaw wedged open. There’s a clatter from the upstairs, probably the kitchen, and the yellow stretchy boy makes his appearance, a flowered apron tied loosely around his waist. 

“What’s going on?” he asks. 

“You’re in my house,” Catra announces lazily, flipping the gold to him. He drops his spatula and catches the drachma. “I’m gonna need you to leave, since I’ve been traveling for who knows how long, and I want to sleep.” 

“You can’t do that. We live here. Who are you even?” Simmer(?) demands, conjuring up a staff in a burst of sparkles and points it at Catra. 

“Chill out, girl wonder,” says Catra, raising her hands lazily. “I’m Catra, and I used to live here. Check it out.” She nods her head towards the base of the tree trunk, barely visible behind the piles of money. A tiny picture of her is scrawled into the wood, with the word “Catra” written neatly underneath, pokes out. Next to that are deep gouges, chunks ripped from the bark in an animalistic rage to make anything underneath indecipherable. 

Purple narrows her eyes, glaring at the small drawing, then Catra. 

“Dude, it’s pretty obvious. What else has cat ears and fangs?” Catra asks, giving them her meanest face. The boy lets out a little shriek when Catra’s fangs pop out. 

“You’re a vampire!” he stutters, his voice crackling like static. 

“Yup,” Catra kicks her feet up into the air and lounges. “And I was here first, so get out.” The unspoken threat, “before I make you,” rings behind it. The boy literally has to hold the girl back from attacking Catra, to which she just laughs. 

“You can try,” Catra snickers, picking the dirt out from under her claws while watching the purple princess warrior glare at her. Yellow Boy, donning an apron that says, “Bacon + Pancakes” elbows Litter and whispers, “Bro, she’s a vampire!!” in a barely indoor voice. 

“The Vampire Queen, actually,” Catra adds, standing up straight to face them. “Listen, I’m all for you guys quaking in fear before me, but do you have my stuff? I left like my favorite couch here and my second favorite leather jacket.” 

The two exchange dubious glances. 

“Uhhh…” the boy starts, then turns toward the purple girl. “What did we do with all the stuff that was here?” 

“I think… we might’ve thrown some of the bigger things into the lake,” she finishes hesitantly, pressing her fingers together. Catra hisses and unsheathes her claws, taking a swipe out of the tree trunk. 

“Seriously? You guys just found a house full of someone else’s things and threw it into a lake? Who the hell do you think you are?” 

“Glimmer and Bow, heroes of Ooo!” the before-mentioned girl booms, placing her hands on her hips in an attempt to power pose. Catra just sighs and presses the bridge of her nose in irritation. 

“You said the bigger things. Does that mean you at least have some of my stuff?” Catra asks. 

“Yeah!” Bow chimes, snapping his fingers. “They’re in the attic, I think.” 

“I’ll see myself up, then,” Catra retorts, and floats upstairs without another word. She passes through the kitchen and the living room, but what Catra kept as the attic is apparently Glimmer and Bow’s room. The furnishings are modest: a twin bed, random weapons and arrows, a wardrobe with a drawer that somehow also functions as a bed, and, oh yeah, a shrine of Adora in the corner. 

“No fucking way,” Catra breathes, pressing her face close to a framed photo of Adora. Underneath is a lock of her dirty blonde hair, a scrap of paper, and a tiny Adora figurine. “Oh my god. No fucking way!” Catra doubles over with hysterics, gasping for air by the time Glimmer and Bow reach her. Glimmer turns a violent shade of scarlet and scrambles to throw a blanket over the whole mess. 

“This has got to be the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen,” Catra wheezes. “Not only do you have a crush on the princess, which is really embarrassing in the first place, but you’ve got a freaking shrine to her, for crying out loud. Where did you even get her hair?” 

“She cut it off Adora when she fell asleep at training. She never even noticed!” Bow chimes in, positively gleaming in excitement to expose his friend. 

“Shut it, Bow!” Glimmer shrieks, batting him away. “Get out of here! This isn’t the attic!” 

She turns back to the shrine, mumbling angrily under her breath. Still laughing, Bow motions Catra back down to the kitchen and out one of the adjacent bridges. 

"Sorry about that," Bow says, his smile genuine in a way that pins her in place. She hasn’t met anyone as sincere in a while, and it catches her off balance. It makes her almost… sentimental. Almost. "She's going through that teenage phase where she falls in love with every single girl she meets. She'll get over it eventually. Here's the attic." 

"Here's my stuff!" Catra says with glee, cataloging the unopened boxes in the corner before pouncing on her worn velvet couch. "Sit down, Bow.” She taps the cushion next to her, onto which Bow folds himself comfortably. 

“Listen up. I’m gonna sleep in this attic, on this couch, until I find another place. You’re lucky I find you guys funny enough to keep the treehouse, but if you ever go through my stuff again, I will slit both of your throats,” Catra states casually, and to emphasize her point, she transforms into an enormous hulking wolf and back again. Bow claps a hand over his mouth in horror and manages a choked, “Yes, ma’am.” 

“Good,” she grins, looking up at Glimmer, who has just entered the attic. “See you later… roomies.”


End file.
